Читать книгу The Bedford Row Mystery - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 5

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Richard was out in the street and running for the nearest cab-rank before he realised the full significance of the managing clerk’s announcement. Dead?—Henry Marchmont dead?—it seemed impossible of belief! He had a vision of his uncle as he had seen him the day before—alert, vigorous, full of life and the enjoyment of it; anybody with half an eye would have said Henry looked good for quite another twenty years. And it was all very well to think of the usual platitudes about the uncertainty of human life, and never knowing what a day may bring forth, and all that!—ninety-nine people out of every hundred would have laid long odds on Henry Marchmont’s prospects of living to a great age. But he was dead—there was no doubt about that. And now—the cause of his death.

Richard knew, well enough, what was at the back of his mind. He had a vivid recollection of all that Henry had said to him the day before about Lansdale’s coming visit to him at Bedford Row. Had that visit come off? Had anything taken place because of it—arising out of it? Was it connected with Henry’s sudden death? Had the two men quarrelled, come to blows? Was it possible that ... he turned hot, cold, hot again, with a fear that he dare not put into words.

The taxicab into which he had leapt carried Richard past the front of the Hotel Cecil, where Lansdale had his suite of private rooms. Richard glanced up and along the rows of windows; somewhere behind one or other of them was Angelita. And it was of Angelita and her future, and his and her future, that he was really thinking. Supposing ... merely supposing, of course ... and yet supposing ... supposing ...

“My God! what an awful business if ...” he groaned, as the cab extricated itself from the crowded traffic of the Strand and turned up Aldwych. “But it can’t be!—it can’t be! It must have been a sudden seizure—I always told him he didn’t take enough exercise. Apoplexy, perhaps—he was rather full-blooded. Still, there was something in that fellow Simpson’s voice——”

Simpson came out to the door as Richard’s cab pulled up in front. He looked unusually grave; so, too, did a youngish man, a stranger who was with him. A knot of curious bystanders stood round; a uniformed policeman moved them aside as Richard sprang out and hurried across the pavement to the managing clerk.

“Well?” he asked quickly as he made up to Simpson. “Is—is that true?”

Simpson motioned him towards a door just within the hall and signed to the stranger to follow them.

“I’m sorry to say it’s quite true, Mr. Richard,” he answered, as he closed the door on the three of them. “I didn’t mean to break it so abruptly, but you asked me. Your uncle is dead, sir—was found dead.” He paused and looked at his companion. “This is Mr. Liversedge, Mr. Richard,” he continued. “Detective-Sergeant Liversedge, of the Yard.”

“Police!” exclaimed Richard. “Then——”

The other two men exchanged glances. Liversedge spoke.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it, sir,” he said. “Mr. Marchmont was murdered!”

In spite of his sound nerves, Richard felt himself reel under this curt announcement. He dropped back into a chair and for a few seconds found it impossible to frame a word. When he did speak his voice sounded strangely level and quiet.

“Are you really sure of that?” he asked.

“Quite sure, sir,” replied Liversedge. “There are two doctors upstairs now, and they will tell you that there is no doubt in the matter. Mr. Marchmont was shot dead, sir—through the heart, and from behind his back—a cowardly affair! According to the medical gentlemen, it would be about eight o’clock last night. That is, just about twelve hours before his dead body was found.”

Richard turned to the managing clerk.

“Who found him?” he asked.

“Mrs. Pardoe found him, Mr. Richard,” replied Simpson. “Mrs. Pardoe is the woman who acts as cleaner; she has been employed here a good many years. Perhaps,” he went on, glancing at the detective, “I ought to tell you what the arrangements have been here?—I don’t know if Mr. Richard is aware of them, either. Mr. Marchmont had a suite of private rooms over the offices—he’s always lived there. But he has never kept servants there. His breakfast was sent in every morning at nine o’clock from a neighbouring restaurant; he always lunched and dined out. A man came every day about the same time to do his valeting. Mrs. Pardoe acted as charwoman and bedmaker. She came of a morning at eight o’clock and attended first to the business offices; later she went up to Mr. Marchmont’s private rooms. She has a key, of course, by which she lets herself in at the front door.”

“Latch-key, I suppose?” suggested Liversedge.

“A latch-key,” assented Simpson. “According to her account, when she came this morning the door was not on the latch. That is, the latch had been fastened back, inside. It’s kept like that, during the day—during business hours, anyway. When Mrs. Pardoe entered she saw Mr. Marchmont—that is, she saw a man’s body, which turned out to be that of Mr. Marchmont—lying on the first landing, with an arm and hand drooping over the steps. Mrs. Pardoe is not, I should say, a strong-nerved woman, and she immediately ran out of the door into the street. Fortunately, she caught sight of a policeman not far off and she attracted his attention and brought him in. He went up to the landing and found that the body was that of Mr. Marchmont, whom he knew quite well by sight, as indeed everybody about here did. He sent round to the neighbouring police-station, and the doctors came. That is about all that we know, Mr. Richard. I came in at my usual time—nine o’clock, and I at once telephoned to you. Perhaps,” he concluded, eyeing Richard diffidently, “perhaps you would like to go upstairs? The doctors are in Mr. Marchmont’s private office. We—we had him carried in there.”

Richard went up to the room in which he had sat with Henry Marchmont not twenty-four hours before. Henry had been full of life then; he lay there dead, now—and handsomer in death than in life, his nephew thought. His face was strangely placid; there was something of a smile about the finely-chiselled lips. Richard had a curious idea as he stood looking at the dead man—Did Henry know who had killed him? But he quickly threw aside all fanciful speculation and turned to the two medical men.

“Can you say, with certainty, when this happened?” he asked.

“Between twelve and thirteen hours before we were called to him,” answered the elder of the two. “That was about half-past eight this morning.”

“Then that would fix the time at about the same hour yesterday evening?” suggested Richard.

“Yes—about eight to half-past,” assented the doctor.

Richard looked again at the dead face. He had been fond of Henry; fond almost as if he had been his father. Henry, indeed, had been a second father to him as a boy, and a good friend in after years. And again he had a curious idea, a speculating wonder. Was it his duty to be the avenger of blood? It was his blood—the family blood! But ... who was the spiller, the murderer? And at the back of his head the same ghastly, sickening thought was hammering. Supposing ... Supposing.... He turned suddenly and left the room without saying more to the doctors. Outside, at the landing on which Henry Marchmont had fallen, Simpson and the detective were whispering together; they glanced at him as he came down the stairs. Richard caught a muttered remark from Liversedge.

“Better let us know all about it at once,” he was saying. “It may be of the very greatest importance.”

Simpson turned to Richard, at the same time opening the door of a room close by.

“Will you come in here, Mr. Richard?” he said. “Mr. Liversedge thinks I had better tell you something I know, and I should like you to hear it. The fact is,” he went on when they were safely closeted in the room, “I do know something, but I should be very sorry, gentlemen, to think that it had anything to do with what has happened. Still——”

“If you know anything at all, you ought to let it out,” interrupted Liversedge. “As I said just now, it may be of the utmost consequence. This is a case of murder!”

“What I know is this,” continued Simpson. He proceeded to address himself to Richard, only glancing at the detective occasionally. “Yesterday morning, Mr. Marchmont called me into his private office, and told me that he wanted to have a confidential talk about a strange matter that had cropped up the night before. He went on to tell me that on the previous evening, when dining out in the City, he had, very much to his astonishment, encountered, in a fellow-guest, a man who, to his knowledge, had been very much wanted by the police at Clayminster twenty-five years ago, when Mr. Marchmont was in practice in that town. He then went on to tell me all the circumstances, and I had better retell them now,” continued Simpson. “They were as follows....”

Richard was compelled to hear the whole story retold which Henry Marchmont had told to him after lunch the day before. Henry had evidently told Simpson everything that he had told him—and now that he heard it a second time it seemed a deeply significant and incriminating story. And while Simpson watched its effect on him, Richard watched its effect on Liversedge, and he saw the detective’s face grow graver and graver; he, plainly, was suspicious.

“Just a question or two, Mr. Simpson,” said Liversedge, when the managing clerk had finished. “Did Mr. Marchmont tell you that he’d made a definite appointment with Lansdale?”

“Oh, yes! He was to come here at eight o’clock last night.”

“In accordance with his own request to Mr. Marchmont?—that he might give him an explanation of his disappearance from Clayminster twenty-five years ago?”

“That was what Mr. Marchmont understood—yes!”

“Did Mr. Marchmont tell you definitely that the Clayminster police wanted this man, when, as Land—his real name, I gather—he disappeared?”

“Mr. Marchmont certainly gave me to understand that. He used the expression ‘very much wanted by the police.’ Moreover, he said, in discussing the affairs with me, ‘Of course, Simpson, there’s no time-limit in these matters: I wonder the fellow dare show his face here!’ Oh, yes, I certainly understood that when Land left Clayminster the police were on his track and completely failed to trace him.”

“Of course, you don’t know if Lansdale did come here last night?”

“No, I don’t know that. He was to come—according to Mr. Marchmont’s account.”

“Mr. Marchmont would be alone?”

“He was always alone of an evening. At least, I mean that none of us, myself or the clerks, you know, were here, unless there was something that necessitated our staying late. As a rule—a rule very rarely broken—we all left at five-thirty. After that, Mr. Marchmont had the whole place, the entire house, to himself.”

Liversedge shook his head. What he was thinking Richard could not even guess at: his next question was addressed to both men.

“Do you gentlemen know what Mr. Marchmont’s habits were, of an evening?” he asked.

“I think Mr. Simpson can answer that better than I can,” said Richard.

“I know pretty well what they were,” asserted Simpson. “He always went out to dine about six o’clock. If he dined alone—I mean at a restaurant, or at his club, or at an hotel, and he had a habit of going first to one, then to another—he came back here by eight. Sometimes he had a friend in, but I believe that as a rule he spent his evenings alone. He was a great, a persistent reader. But he also dined out a good deal—two or three times a week, I should think. On these occasions he came home later.”

“Do you know where he was dining when he met Lansdale?”

“Yes. At the Cannon Street Hotel. A private dinner of financial men—Mr. Marchmont knew a lot of City men.”

“A private dinner? You don’t know the names of any gentlemen who were there?”

“Oh, yes—one, at any rate. Mr. Waterhouse—a client of ours.”

“That’s good! We can get Lansdale’s address from him.”

“I know that already,” said Simpson. “Mr. Marchmont knew it; probably he got it from Mr. Waterhouse. Lansdale has a private suite at the Hotel Cecil.”

“Rich man, I suppose?” remarked the detective.

“I gathered that he has that reputation,” replied Simpson.

Liversedge looked from one to the other of his companions.

“Very good,” he said quietly. “I’ll go along to the Hotel Cecil and inquire for Mr. Lansdale. But,” he added, with a significant smile, “if he was here last night, I shan’t find him there! However—I’ll go.”

Richard broke the silence which he had kept during the conversation between the clerk and the detective.

“If you have no objection,” he said, “I’ll go with you.”

“No objection whatever, sir,” replied Liversedge. “You’ve a very good right to see this man and to question him too. But you know, Mr. Marchmont,” he continued, when he and Richard had left the office and were driving off in the taxicab which Richard had kept waiting, “it’s just as I said up there—if Lansdale was at your uncle’s office last night he won’t be at the Hotel Cecil this morning! No!”

“Aren’t you rather jumping to a conclusion?” asked Richard.

“Jumping to nothing, Mr. Marchmont! And I’m not presupposing Lansdale’s guilt nor his innocence. But there’s a lot too much coincidence about all this business for me! It all comes too much of a lump. Taking all the facts into consideration, I think Lansdale did come to Bedford Row last night—and I say again, if he did, we shan’t find him at his hotel this morning. But—we may find out where he is!”

Richard remained silent till they turned into the Strand. Then he suddenly bent to his companion.

“Look here!” he said. “I want to say something! I don’t know Mr. Lansdale: I’ve never set eyes on him. But—I know his daughter! She’s here with him at the Cecil. She’ll be alarmed if he isn’t there, and we make a sudden entry. Let me go in first!”

Liversedge smiled and nodded an assent.

“All right, Mr. Marchmont!” he said. “Very good, sir. But I’ll be close at hand—and after all, I’m only beginning!”

Five minutes later, Richard found himself shown into Angelita’s presence.

“Your father?” he began. “Is he——”

But he knew, as soon as he had begun his question, that it was useless, and that Lansdale was not there.